Oil, Gas and Orange Juice

September 13, 2026 | Sundance |

Western financial experts have a self-interest to never explain this issue. Instead, they frame the issue as BRICS seeking an alternate currency in the energy markets. However, the currency or petrodollar is not the issue. At least it’s not the core issue.

What Vladimir Putin, and by extension BRICS, do not want is corporatism -corporate financial control over govt systems- determining prices.

To give you an example of Vladimir Putin’s argument, consider orange juice.

Why should orange juice in California or Florida cost $7/gal, when the oranges are in CA or FL?

Shouldn’t the orange juice in FL or CA be cheaper than in, say, Minnesota? Logic would say, yes.

However, that would mean the corporations who have purchased the OJ production couldn’t maximize predatory profiting, through nonmarket forces, ie. “Commodity trading.”

The same organic supply/demand rule applies to strawberries, or [fill in the blank].

What is setting the price, what the west calls the “market price,” is actually the commodity trading issue. That means Minnesota, Florida and California consumers all pay the same price. Within the energy sector Putin views this as unfair and unworkable.

To his credit, under normal supply/demand Putin would be selling oil/gas to Europe at much lower prices than “market prices” because the pipelines are in place, the proximity is near and the delivery is cheap.

However, for Europe that means the financial markets would not control energy prices. Europe wants financial control, not cheap energy.

The need for control is a reaction to fear. The financial system, the bankers and the multinational corporations, fears their loss of control.

So, war!

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/09/13/oil-gas-and-orange-juice/

President Vladimir Putin Explains Why NATO Wants a War Against Russia 1/3

September 13, 2026 | Sundance |

Sometimes Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin just nails the issue in a way that is difficult for western voices to deconstruct. This is one of those examples.

Using the reference of the EU recently raising interest rates in an effort to lower energy costs,a seemingly disconnected approach that attaches energy policy to monetary policy, Vladimir Putin outlines exactly why the EU Central Bank approach is used. This is a really important dynamic to understand.

For a long time, Russia battled with the EU over the pricing process for oil and gas. Russia, specifically Putin, wanted to sell oil/gas to the EU based on production prices and fair profits.

Europe wanted to buy Russian oil/gas based on “market prices” which are manipulated by speculation and traders.

Putin doesn’t like this pricing approach because it artificially inflates the price based on speculation, trading and inorganic influences.

Instead, Putin always said the “market approach” makes your energy prices go up, even when production capacitary prices go down (productivity).

Producers can provide increases in energy volume at lower per unit levels just by turning a dial on gas volume. Why would Europe want to pay more, when the cost to deliver a higher volume lowers the per unit price. The EU never had a good answer, other than that’s just the way the ‘western market’ works.

Concluding the first day of his working visit to India for the BRICS meeting, Vladimir Putin answered a media question about the EU and used this reference to outline why the financial system of the EU is actually the underlying reason for their need to have conflict with Russia. This is really interesting.

•Question: You have spoken at length today about the BRICS countries. I would like to raise a question concerning a nation which, though geographically more distant from here, is perhaps closer to you personally – Germany. As is known, elections have recently taken place in Saxony, where the Alternative for Germany secured a decisive victory.It appears a similar trend is emerging in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania as well. How do you view these developments?

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: I do not wish to, nor will I, comment on matters of the internal political developments currently unfolding in the Federal Republic.

However, there are points which merit attention in this context – and I will explain why. In my view, all that is now happening across Europe as a whole is the consequence of systemic errors committed by the so‑called West, or, to be more precise, by the globalist circles of the West, in the political, security and economic spheres.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/09/13/president-vladimir-putin-explains-why-nato-wants-a-war-against-russia/

>>25037814

2/3

Everyone is prone to mistakes. We, too, have made numerous mistakes, as has the wider world.Yet the difficulty for the globalist West lies here: following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, they perceived themselves as standing atop the “summit of Mount Olympus,” and evidently concluded that, firstly, they were permitted everything and, secondly, that they themselves were incapable of error. From then on, these mistakes began to accumulate and snowball.

In the security sphere – the meaning is clear.This has taken the form of attempts to put pressure on the Russian Federation, initially through the use of terrorists in the Caucasus and separatists, then via other methods, and now – by means of the neo‑Nazi regime in Ukraine. This process continues unabated.

At one time, we were included in the G8. Yet, as I have previously stated, this did not constitute full‑fledged membership. I saw this plainly and saw everything quite clearly. Although, on the surface, all appeared well and all the requisite words were spoken, in practice – I reiterate – they directly supported separatism in the Caucasus and sought to break up Russia. This is a matter of fact. Furthermore, today’s crisis in Ukraine was likewise instigated by them. These are persistent and recurring elements of pressure.

After all, we have repeatedly stated that NATO’s expansion eastward is unacceptable to us. Ultimately, they reached Ukraine. President Yanukovych was removed from office through a coup d’état.I am not now offering any assessment of President Yanukovych’s actions. There were, most likely, numerous mistakes, and probably grounds for the population’s discontent. Yet he was opposed to Ukraine’s accession to NATO. As soon as the regime was changed through, I repeat, a bloody coup d’état, the objective of pulling Ukraine into NATO was immediately set in motion, and this, in fact, became the root cause of today’s tragic events in Ukraine.

They, the Western globalist elites, bear responsibility for this, although they persistently seek to shift the blame onto us.

As for the economic sphere, the most pressing issue at present is, naturally, energy. This represents yet another area – namely, the economic domain – in which mistakes have been made. How many times did we discuss with them the necessity of maintaining our established energy relations? We supplied gas to Europe at a price of $150 – well, $180 dollars – per 1,000 cubic metres. “That is too expensive,” they told us, “we must switch to market pricing.” But what does market pricing mean?

Under our long-term contracts, prices were – and indeed still are – indexed to the price of oil and petroleum products, which are determined by market mechanisms. “No,” they insisted, “prices must be set on the exchange.” We warned them that gas is not a market commodity, or at least not a classic market commodity; this approach will yield nothing and your prices will only increase. And so, it has turned out: prices are now at 1,000 dollars or euros per 1,000 cubic metres. And they may well rise even further.

How, in fact, is the price of gas formed on the European exchanges? It is not determined by producers, but by exchange traders. Currently in Germany – as far as I am aware – the current objective is simply to fill the gas storage facilities to 70 percent capacity –the objective is of filling only to 70 percent.

Whether they will succeed in reaching this target remains unclear. The situation in the Netherlands is even worse. And why is this so? Those who engage in exchange trading are unconcerned with the technical condition of these storage facilities and the physical volumes involved. They believe that today, it is more advantageous to extract gas from storage that was purchased at lower prices, and as for tomorrow – well, we’ll see. This will result in prices rising not just to 1,000, but to 1,500. Thus, yet another mistake has been made, this time in the economic sphere.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/09/13/president-vladimir-putin-explains-why-nato-wants-a-war-against-russia/

>>25037817

3/3

I have heard, likewise, that in Germany itself, the current authorities claim to be following the course set by the previous leadership, and the name of Helmut Kohl is often invoked in this context. I was personally acquainted with Mr Kohl. I can state with certainty: he did not hold the views that the present leadership of the Christian Democratic Union espouses – he simply did not. I spoke with him when he was still Chancellor, and after he had left office, he visited us. He believed that the future of Europe, and of the Federal Republic, would be secured only if close, neighbourly, allied relations with Russia were maintained. We must complement one another, he used to say; only thus could the European civilisation preserve itself as an independent centre of intellectual and cultural strength, and, by extension, all that follows in the political and economic domains. Those were Mr Kohl’s words to me

Yet today’s European elites adhere to a different perspective. They now seek to frighten their populations with a mythical Russian threat, purportedly dating back to the Soviet era. But such a threat does not exist, and never has. We do not threaten, nor do we intend to threaten, European countries – for what reason would we? No one appears to consider that we have no grounds for any conflict with Europe. All issues were resolved by the outcome of the Second World War. Moreover, all that transpired following the collapse of the Soviet Union was undertaken with the consent of the Russian Federation as the successor state. Any actions contrary to these agreements run counter to our interests and are inconsistent with the fundamental principles of international law and the UN Charter. That is the essence of the matter.

Nonetheless, they persist in this course, demanding certain changes. But what changes do they seek? Are they attempting to revise the results of the Second World War? To what end are they steering their peoples? Toward war with the Russian Federation? Now, they speak of contemplating the dispatch of troops to the territory of Ukraine. This would mean war with Russia. And I presume that European citizens understand what is unfolding. {SOURCE}

Speculation, exchange trading, market pricing, etc. these are the reasons why the EU is presenting an increase in central bank interest rates to try and lower energy prices. The central bank approach has nothing to do with the price of the energy (oil/gas) and everything to do with the financial markets speculating on the prices of oil and gas and profiting from the speculation/trading itself.

As noted by Russian President Putin, allowing hedge funds, financial interests and inorganic market forces to set the prices of an item disconnects that item from the economic principle of supply and demand. The prices that people suffer for oil and gas are being driven by the mechanisms set up by western financial interests. This is manipulative and creates pain on the consumer and the people who have to pay more.

[SOURCE}

Europe and Canada are destroying themselves in an attempt to destroy America

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/09/13/president-vladimir-putin-explains-why-nato-wants-a-war-against-russia/

The unlikely appeal of Sergey Lavrov to Generation Z 1/2

A rare Sergey Lavrov interview reveals his humor, habits and views on history – and helps explain why Russia’s Gen Z finds him so appealing

Published 13 Sep, 2026 17:57 | By Polina Polyakova

I’ll readily admit that I adore Sergey Lavrov. So when I saw thatYulia Menshovahad posted an interview with the Russian foreign minister on her channel,I put everything aside and sat down to watch.

MinisterLavrov rarely gives personal interviews. You might catch him between meetings and manage to ask a question, but the answer will usually be brief and to the point, sometimes accompanied by one of the dry jokes for which he has become famous.

Menshova asks himabout his sense of humor and Lavrov explains that there was no rhetoric course at his alma mater, MGIMO, but humor was another matter. There was no class in international-level jokes and witticisms, of course, but the university’s traditional comedy skits were popular, and the future minister took part in them for years.

He evidently learned something.Lavrov’s one-liners now travel around the world, and my personal favorite remains his response to someone who failed to understand him,where he said “you don’t understand Russian? High time to learn.”

Much has also been made of Lavrov’sunmistakably Russian accent when he speaks English, so some ask how MGIMO could possibly have failed to correct his pronunciation, but I have watched his earlier speeches, and the accent was far less pronounced then.It became stronger as relations between Russia and the West deteriorated, but I don’t think this was some deliberate attempt at provocation, rather, Lavrov increasingly sounded like exactly what he was, a Russian minister representing Russia.

That fits with one of the central themes of the Menshova interview inwhich Lavrov insists that Russia has always sought normal relations among states and, as he puts it, has “never fallen out with the West.”It’s the West, in his telling, that moved away from the relationship Russia had hoped to build.

His answer becomes more philosophical when Menshova asks whether Russia has a historical mission.

“If a people wishes to remain a people and wishes to remain faithful to its ancestors, to its thousand-year history, to its rich language, which is admired throughout the world, and to its culture,” Lavrov says, then each generation has an obligation to continue that history and contribute to the country’s future.

“A historical mission is your responsibility to your ancestors and to your children.”

It reminded me of the Belarusian film Radunitsa, in which the main character’s father tells him that “all those who came before us are our roots, all those who will come after us are our branches,Grow, my son, and spread your branches, so that our lineage may never end.”

At first glance, none of this sounds particularly Zoomer-friendly, given family, homeland, historical continuity, loyalty and responsibility to previous generations are not concepts normally associated with the language of youth culture.

Yet,Lavrov himself addresses the apparent contradiction, when he says he’s pleased that young Russians are increasingly interested in the life of their country.

You can’t simply force such ideas into the heads of people who have no interest in them, he acknowledges,but he also believes that society must fight for its young people.

https://www.rt.com/russia/645612-sergey-lavrov-generation-z/

RT has thoroughly changed their writers, written reports etc and are revealing more of Russian Life and society, a very good enhancement.

>>25037908

2/2

And despite being 76, Lavrov turns out to have rather more in common with them than one might expect.

He admits, quite cheerfully,that he likes being lazy. Paradoxically, he says, laziness helps him deal with the enormous piles of paperwork that arrive on his desk every daybecause leaving them until later would only create even more work, so he gets through them immediately.

He reads contemporary Russian writers. Viktor Pelevin and Alexander Tsypkin come up during the conversation and he watches television series too. Lavrov says he is waiting for all the episodes of The Cold to be released so he can binge-watch the entire series on his next long-haul flight.

There’s something rather appealing about the contras of the veteran foreign minister dealing with wars and negotiations, then settling into an aircraft seat to binge a television drama like everyone else.

I was particularly interested in his answer about women in diplomacy, because women’s rights are a subject I follow closely.

Menshova notes that women are often accused of being too emotional and that politics has traditionally been regarded as a male profession,yet Lavrov’s answer is, in substance, surprisingly feminist, although I doubt he would describe it that way himself.

“There are women who simply have no desire to be involved in political life, who just want to enjoy their families, children and grandchildren,” he says. “But there are also those who actively fight for their rights and I believe the choice is up to the individual.”

He argues that obstructing a woman’s career because she is a woman is wrong, noting that such cases existed even in the Soviet Foreign Ministry, although he describes them as extremely rare. But he rejects the opposite approach too, of promoting someone simply because she is a woman.

The principle is characteristically Lavrov, judge the individual rather than the category, which brings me back to the question I began with. Why do Zoomers adore Sergey Lavrov?

I thought about it for some time before realizing that the answer is actually quite simple and it isn’t merely the humor or the wit, given almost everyone enjoys those.Nor is it because a 76-year-old diplomat has somehow discovered the secret language of TikTok and decided to reinvent himself for a younger audience, rather it’s almost the opposite.

Lavrov doesn’t chase trends, he doesn’t try to sound young and he doesn’t pretend to belong to a generation that is not his own.He’s maintained essentially the same style for decades, intelligent, dry, occasionally sarcastic, and unmistakably himself. Somehow that style has come back into fashion.

Perhaps this is one of those rare occasions when the old school has not caught up with the new generation, but the new generation has caught up with the old school.

https://www.rt.com/russia/645612-sergey-lavrov-generation-z/

Zelensky sanctions ex-press secretary turned fierce critic

Yulia Mendel has accused her former boss of “autocracy” and ==targeting anyone who speaks out for peace•=

Published 14 Sep, 2026 00:35

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has imposed sanctions on his former press secretary, YuliaMendel, who has emerged as an outspoken critic of his policies and accused Kiev of turning against its own citizens.

Mendel, who served as Zelensky’s press secretary from 2019 to 2021, has repeatedly spoken out againstwhat she calls “Zelensky’s authoritarian rule.” In an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson last May, she made a series of allegations against her former boss, accusing him of corruption, rampant drug use, and the obstruction of efforts to end the conflict with Russia.

Zelensky issued a decree on Sunday which slapped Mendel with personal restrictions including an asset freeze, a ban on transferring capital abroad, and other financial and commercial measures set to last ten years.

Mendel will also be stripped of state honors indefinitely and have her social media accounts restricted inside Ukraine. She was the only Ukrainian citizen among the ten sanctioned individuals.

In a post on X on Sunday, Mendel, who is scheduled to address the European Parliament later this week,slammed the sanctions as “unconstitutional, just like many of Zelenskyy’s other decisions,”accusing her former boss of targeting “anyone who advocates for peace in Ukraine.”

“Watch what they’re doing. Zelenskyy isn’t just fighting the war – he’s fighting anyone who questions his version of it,” she wrote in a follow-up post addressing the restrictions on her social media profiles.

“A nation marketed as a beacon of democracy is sliding toward something colder: a wartime state that treats disagreement as disloyalty. No independent opinion. No free expression. No speech for Ukrainians who say they want peace,” she added.

During theCarlson interview, Mendel claimed thatZelensky had demanded “Goebbels propaganda” from his communications teamafter his approval ratings began declining in 2019 or 2020, calling for “thousands of talking heads” to promote a positive image of his government.

Shortly afterward, the former press secretary wasadded to Ukraine’s state-linked Mirotvorets databasefor allegedly spreading “Russian propaganda narratives”and advocating Kiev’s “capitulation.”

The website is widely believed to cooperate with Ukrainian security services in publishing the personal data of people it identifies as state enemies, including Western journalists and children as young as three.When blacklisted figures are murdered or die for any reason, the database marks them as “liquidated,”reinforcing its reputation among critics as a “kill list.”

https://www.rt.com/russia/645665-zelensky-sanctions-former-press-secretary/

NATO seeking to push Russia out of Arctic – scholar

The bloc’s European members want to steer the agenda in the region, where Moscow has an extensive presence, Irina Strelnikova has said

Published 13 Sep, 2026 15:48 |

European NATO members are seeking to push Russia out of Arctic cooperation arrangements while integrating the region into its military strategy, Irina Strelnikova,Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Arctic Studies at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, has said.

In an interview with RT, Strelnikova weighed in on the European Arctic Summit that opened in Finland on Sunday and is being attended by leaders from Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and France – all NATO members – alongside several senior EU officials, including foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.

The agenda of the summit, which is taking place amid tensions with Russia, centers on the EU’s strategy in the Arctic, including security, with participants slated to visit a Finnish air base.The summit has no connection to the Arctic Council, a separate cooperation platform comprising Russia, the US, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

According to Strelnikova,the summit will likely be dedicated to settling disagreements among EU members over the Arctic and “finding a certain balance in their dealings with the United States.”Earlier this year, President Donald Trump pressed for the acquisition of Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory.

She noted that the EU is poised to fundamentally change its approach to the Arctic compared to 2021, when it last presented a paper on the region. The previous policy, she said, “was largely devoted to fairly constructive issues: science, climate, and cooperation.”

“Now the narrative is changing significantly. Climate, science, and cooperation have effectively been pushed down to the fourth tier of priorities. Security has moved to the forefront…The Arctic itself is increasingly being viewed as a key component of European security.”

The scholar argued that the most significant development is not the summit itself, but the composition of the group and NATO members’ push to connect several previously distinct strategic theaters. “The countries represented there effectively form a single line stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea,” Strelnikova said. “They no longer view the Arctic in isolation. Instead, they are beginning… to link Arctic issues with the Baltic and Black Sea regions.”

This, in my view, is a genuinely worrying signal,” she stressed.

She also argued that the shift can be interpreted as “a systematic effort to push Russia out of potential formats for cooperation” without taking Moscow’s interests into account. “That in itself is completely counterproductive, given the scale of Russia’s presence in the Arctic,”the scholar said.

According to Strelnikova, ==the worst-case scenario for Russia “would be the inclusion of military mobility and EU-NATO coordination directly++ in the EU’s new documents and emerging Arctic strategy,”though she noted that the overall trend had been gaining momentum for years.

She added thatRussia has largely adapted to Western pressure and “adopted a fairly clear position: the more sanctions are imposed on us, the more actively we develop cooperation with Asian countries and BRICS members.”

Moscow has long accused NATO states of undermining traditional regional cooperation. In late August, Russian Foreign Minister SergeyLavrov slammed the US-led bloc over driving the Arctic toward militarization and argued that Western members had left the Arctic Council in a severe crisisafter curtailing cooperation with Russia following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

https://www.rt.com/russia/645649-nato-seeking-to-push-russia/

(What a stupid idea, they are basically trying to kick Russia out of their territory of 100s and perhaps 1,000’s of years. Russians have more talent and science than any other country. Jealous creatures of EU.)